Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
by Syndic-Machiavelli
Summary: Title says it all. A journey into the twisted thoughts of Viktorand his reflections on Selene. Prefilm.


Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

PG-13 for disturbing themes.

A/N: This is one of the very few Viktor-centered fics on and it strangely seems to be a particularly well written genre. I wrote this _really _late at night…well in the morning actually, so don't blame me if it's too dark and twisted for you. You've been warned.

r r r

When you sleep beside a head full of images, there is an osmosis, a certain sharing in the night. So he thought. He thought a lot then; more than he ever had since Sonja's death, perhaps. Or maybe he was just more aware of the process, and the identity of thought and passing time. Sonja… Sometimes he felt as though every instant he had spent with her was a precious capsule of sensation that should have been lovingly preserved and carefully placed somewhere inviolable, away from harm. But he only fully realised that later; it wasn't something he was fully aware of at the time. At the time, it seemed to him that the only thing he had _never_ been fully aware of, was her.

He could never have thought, never imagined that there could be another Sonja in this world, let alone that he would meet her when she was so vulnerable and alone, with nothing to prevent him from turning her – but only because _he_ had sucked the life out of everyone she had ever loved. What else could he have done, though? "_Forgive me child: your family is dead, slaughtered." _Her horror, tears, disbelief…and yet a quiet dignity that belied her years, _that_ was what had stopped him. _"I killed them, but I cannot kill you again. I killed you once, and look what that made me become." _What a wonderful effect _that_ would have had. Of couse he had lied. After all, no-one else knew. No, Kraven knew. But she would never believe _him;_ she hated him, would think that he had invented it to hurt her, out of jealousy, yes, he was safe. Besides, she could never bring herself to kill him anyway; she loved him. As he had loved Sonja.

r r r

It took her a while to get to sleep. She wasn't used to it; sleeping by day, active by night. She still wasn't used to what she _was. _A vampire, a bloodsucker, a damned creature of the night. It was easy to forget, sometimes, to believe that she was still human. But the nightmares always reminded her. Images of her family – her sister, who had guided her in everything – her mother, her cousins…skulls cracked open, ribcages torn apart, and the blood. Blood everywhere. She remembered the terror of it all, and the strange man who had become her family since that night. She didn't dare to think of what all that blood meant to her as a vampire.

r r r

But he tried not to let it bother him; at any time he could simply look at her and wrap his adoration for her around himself like a coat on a frigid night, and see her life, her moods and expressions and speech and movements as a whole enthralling field of study that he could submerge himself in like a scholar finding his life's work.

_This is more like it,_ some small, remindful voice inside him said. _This is more like the way it's supposed to be; in this, you can leave all that other stuff behind, the guilt, the secrecy and the chair and the other man._ But he tried not to listen to that voice.

r r r

He held her in his arms. Somewhere, she knew that, in some corner of her mind unaffected by the horrors of that night. No matter how much terror was contained in the inevitable nightmares, whatever spectres haunted her each day, he would be there, comforting her, banishing the memories for another day. But her dark father would, ironically for the eternal damned, not be there for her after the dawn of the new century.

r r r

He put his head to her shoulder, drew her tighter. She stirred in her sleep, moved too, her arms around him, drawing him to her. When he had found her, he thought what she wanted was for him to tell her the story of his life, but he had already told her he could never do that. He didn't need to confess to her; there was no need. She had already unburdened him, even if he did not know quite how. _Memories are interpretations, not truth, Father, and rational thought just another instinctive power._

He felt the slowly healing polarisation of his mind, matching his to hers, the alignment of all his prejudices and conceits to the lodestone of the image she represented for him.

She helped him, and without knowing it. She mended him, reaching back to something so buried he'd thought it inaccessible forever, and drawing its sting. So perhaps it was also that which stunned him; the effect this one person was having on memories so terrible to him that he had long ago resigned himself to them only growing more potent with age. But she just ringed them off, cut them out, parcelled them up and threw them away, and she didn't even realise she was doing it, had no idea of the extent of her influence.

She slept on. He rested his head again.

r r r

'How old are you?' she'd asked, near twilight on that first day.

'Older and younger than you.'

'Cryptic crap; answer the question...please.'

He smiled into the darkness. 'Well ... how long do mortals in this century live?'

'I don't know. Sixty, seventy years?'

Close enough. 'Then I'm ... about one thousand three hundred; nine hundred; and thirty.'

She whistled, moved her head on his shoulder. 'A choice.'

'Sort of. I was born one thousand and three hundred years ago, I

have lived for nine hundred of them, and physically I'm

about thirty.'

The laughter was deep in her throat. He felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards. Cryptic indeed.

r r r

'Why do you always wake before me?'

'I don't know,' he sighed. 'I like watching you sleep.'

'Why?' She rolled and lay on her back, turning her head to him,

'When you're awake you move, and I miss things.'

'What things?'

'Everything you do. When you're asleep you hardly move, and I can take it all in. There's enough time.'

'Strange.' Her voice was slow.

'Fath...' she started, then looked down. Her smile looked very sad when she looked back up.

'There was nothing'…_I can do nothing to save you_ _Sonja_… 'you could have done Selene.' He touched her face, studied her eyes. 'I really shouldn't care for you so much, Selene.'

'Why not?'

'Lots of reasons. All the past and all the future; because you are who you are, and I am who I am. Just everything.'

She smiled up at him. 'To every man his monster…' _Or woman, for that matter._


End file.
